Image: Instagram
Remember that great scene in Miss Congeniality when Miss New York is eliminated and leaves the stage saying “I just want to let all the lesbians out there know: if I can make it to the top ten, so can you! Big out to Brooklyn! Yo!”?
Well, a real life version of that is on tap for the Miss America broadcast coming up on September 11th.
Ok, it won’t actually be that dramatic. There won’t be a coming-out sequence on stage during any point in the show but only because Erin O’Flaherty a.k.a. Miss Missouri is already out.
In an interview earlier this year, O’Flaherty told Cosmo that she’s always been out to close friends and family and came out publicly after a year of competing in pageants. She feels like her performance improved once she was presenting her whole self on stage. She says her parents have always been supportive and she’s never experienced overt homophobia within the pageant system.
Aside from being a trailblazer as the first openly gay Miss America contestant, O’Flaherty is working on behalf of the LGBTQ community in her official pageant platform of suicide prevention. She works closely with the Trevor Project*, an organization dedicated to helping prevent suicide among LGBTQ youth. She also partners with American Foundation for Suicide Prevention**.
Now that we all know that Miss Missouri is out and proud, that leaves only one question: what will she wear in the evening gown competition?!
*If you are a young person in crisis, feeling suicidal, or in need of a safe and judgment-free place to talk, call the Trevor Lifeline now at 866-488-7386
**If you are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK-8255
